Stella
by moonprincessjasmine
Summary: Cloud hates stars. A short little ficlet. Kind of angst-y.


Title: Stella

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: A little bit of mild language.

Pairings: None explicit. Unresolved Tifa/Cloud, a smidge (depending on how you want to look at it) of lightly-implied Cloud/Sephiroth

Summary: Cloud dislikes stars. Set sometime close to the final battle.

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII belongs to Square Enix. I am not making any money from the distribution of this fanfic, it's just a hobby.

Cloud always thought stars were cold, and cruel, and uncaring. He had never understood what the fascination with them was; why teachers would paste those tinfoil ones on tests you did well on, why people wished on them, why someone famous and beautiful was called one. He shared his thoughts on stars only once, with Zack. He told the older man that he hated stars, that they were harsh and unkind, that even the much-romanticized life-giving sun didn't give a damn about the planets orbiting it. That the sun would continue to burn itself from the inside out for a million years even if the planet never existed.

Zack hadn't understood. To him, the stars were cool and clear and beautiful, the sun warm and kind, except for the heat of summer when it was perhaps too enthusiastic about its job.

It was one of the few thoughts that weren't clouded with Zack's memory, seen through his hazel eyes- Cloud's distaste of stars.

Growing up in Nibelheim, the cold thin mountain air had lent itself well to stargazing. The unrelenting gaze of those icy eyes was one of the myriad of reasons he had left. When he got to Midgar, he was relieved that the plate hid all trace of the sky; relieved to be surrounded on all sides by concrete and metal.

Funny then, that his whole journey to Midgar was sparked by stars- the human kind. He wanted to become a SOLDIER to be like Sephiroth, a star who might have been a literal star made human with his impossibly pale skin and silver hair. He wanted to become a SOLDIER to impress Tifa, a star in his hometown like the sun, warm and shining, but she burned Cloud to the bone.

Zack, Cloud mused, would have liked Tifa- /had/ liked Tifa, for the short time they interacted. She was his kind of star. Sephiroth... Sephiroth was his kind of star; untouchable, distant, uncaring and unconcerned with the young cadet that sought so desperately to be like him. Even as he descended into madness, Sephiroth was still Cloud's kind of star, cruel and cold.

The blond wasn't a star. He was more like- like a meteor, a hard lump of inglorious rock, ill-treated by time. Looking up sharply through the window he was idly gazing out of, Cloud saw the meteor hanging in the sky and somehow found it in him to laugh before he sat back heavily onto his bed.

Tifa, who was in the tiny inn room as well but not looking out the window shot him a confused and frightened glance- the same kind of glance the people in the tiny town were giving the meteor that hovered in the sky, slowly coming to crush them all into dust. The analogy was more than appropriate. He laughed again, a bitter sharp bark of a laugh, harsher than the last.

Cloud had loved Tifa once, in his own childish way. Desired her before something like desire became complicated with adult themes of sex. He had always found her beautiful- he still did- but his desire was less for her body than for her persona. He wanted to bask in the warm circle of her light and love. Had wanted; those long ago dreams were dust now.

The great, overreaching irony of it all was that out of the ashes of his love and desire sprang hers. She wanted him as he was moving away, out of her orbit. The blond would think it selfish, if it were anyone but Tifa. Perhaps some splinter of that fragile love still remained; he couldn't bring himself to think of anything less than the best of her.

She was still watching him, face carefully returned to neutral, but tense. Expectant somehow. Barret... Barret had left, still firmly convinced that there was something between Cloud and Tifa that warranted giving them privacy in the evenings. Barret was gone, and they were alone in the small inn room, the dusty meteor and the brightly burning star. It made sense, in a depressingly indiscreet way. Cloud placed his sword carefully by the bed, pulling off his heavy boots and socks, unmindful of the chafing of the rough wood floor against his feet. Pausing for a moment, he glanced over his shoulder at the woman, sitting unsteadily on her bed at the opposite side of the room. She met his gaze, her brown eyes searching for something in his deep blue.

Cloud turned away. "Good night, Tifa."

He turned off the light.


End file.
